When cooled or pressurized, polymer melts exhibit a tremendous reduction in molecular
mobility. If the process is performed at a constant rate, the structural relaxation time of the …

Granular materials consist of macroscopic grains, interacting via contact forces, and
unaffected by thermal fluctuations. They are one of a class systems that undergo jamming, ie …

In 1989, Sir Sam Edwards made the visionary proposition to treat jammed granular materials
using a volume ensemble of equiprobable jammed states in analogy to thermal equilibrium …

We review the general aspects of the concept of temperature in equilibrium and non-
equilibrium statistical mechanics. Although temperature is an old and well-established …

Recent advances in the potential energy landscapes approach are highlighted, including
both theoretical and computational contributions. Treating the high dimensionality of …

Machine learning techniques are being increasingly used as flexible non-linear fitting and
prediction tools in the physical sciences. Fitting functions that exhibit multiple solutions as …

To explore basin geometry in high-dimensional dynamical systems, we consider a ring of
identical Kuramoto oscillators. Many attractors coexist in this system; each is a twisted …

It is now 100 years since Lennard-Jones published his first paper introducing the now
famous potential that bears his name. It is therefore timely to reflect on the many …

In the late 1980s, Sam Edwards proposed a possible statistical-mechanical framework to
describe the properties of disordered granular materials. A key assumption underlying the …

Predicting phase stabilities of crystal polymorphs is central to computational materials
science and chemistry. Such predictions are challenging because they first require …